Murphy’s Law, written by Barbara Murphy, appears monthly in The Golden Times. The column represents the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of the publisher.

Alzheimer’s Epidemic Makes Any Cuts To Medicaid ShortsightedThe folks eager to cut Medicaid benefits refuse to see the elephant in the room. His name is Alzheimer’s Disease. This cruel affliction, which primarily attacks the elderly, has already reached epidemic proportions. Five million Americans now have the disease. And that’s the good news. The bad news is that the ranks of the elderly in America will soon be swelled by millions of baby boomers. The first of them turn 65 this year. It is estimated that by 2050, about 15 million people in the U.S. will have Alzheimer’s at an annual cost of as much as $700 billion. David Shenk, author of the book “The Forgetting - Alzheimer’s: Portrait of an Epidemic,” said that Alzheimer’s has already become a costly and miserable fixture in society. Unless a cure is found soon, he said, Alzheimer’s will soon become one of the defining characteristics of civilization, one of the cornerstones of the human experience. The disease, named after Alois Alzheimer, who discovered the plaques and tangles that characterize the malady, has existed for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks and Romans wrote about people who were victims of the “forgetting disease” that afflicted some of their elderly. But the disease was not common until modern medicine enabled human beings to live long lives. Though there is an early-onset form of Alzheimer’s, most victims are elderly. The longer you live, the greater your chances of getting the disease. One out of every five Americans who are age 85 or older have Alzheimer’s Disease. The disease is so costly because in most cases it lasts for years. The philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson had Alzheimer’s for 15 years before he died. Emerson was lucky. He was cared for by loving family members and his disease never made him violent or unmanageable. Unfortunately, most Alzheimer’s victims reach a point where they cannot be cared for at home, and they must be placed in a long-term care facility which can cost $3,000 to $7,000 per month. When the patient’s money runs out, and that can happen very quickly, the patient goes on Medicaid. Very often the patient spends his or her last years in a county or state-operated facility. These facilities depend on Medicaid to care for their penniless Alzheimer’s patients. If Congress gives in to the anti-tax fanatics and slashes the federal contribution to Medicaid — a joint federal-state program — the taxpayers will have no reasons to rejoice. Loss of the federal money for Medicaid means the states and counties will have to raise their taxes to take care of Alzheimer’s victims and other impoverished elderly who need nursing home care. Another factor to be added to the Alzheimer’s bill is the cost of drugs. Scientific researchers are now allowed to patent their discoveries and pharmaceutical companies have to make their shareholders happy. Scientists are making some progress in finding a cure for Alzheimer’s, but if and when they finally come up with a real cure, the drugs are going to cost a fortune unless the federal government imposes price controls. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. One reason our national debt is already so high is that Congress, under pressure from the George W. Bush administration and high powered lobbyists, created Medicare Part D without bothering to fully fund the new benefit, which covers prescription drugs for seniors. In “The Forgetting,” Mr. Shenk said that for thousands of years Alzheimer’s was a “hidden” disease because so few people lived long enough to get it. He makes the frightening suggestion that Alzheimer’s is not the only “hidden” disease. He speculates that other “hidden” diseases lie in wait to devastate elderly humans as more and more people live into old age. Nature does not intend for most species to live decades after they have ceased to reproduce, Mr. Shenk said. Our biological duty is to have children, raise them to adulthood and then die. In discovering drugs and performing surgeries that keep old people alive, we are defying the laws of nature and the result is diseases like Alzheimer’s and other “hidden” diseases, which Mr. Shenk believes are lying in wait for the elderly. He also fears that modern technology may make us more susceptible to “forgetting” diseases like Alzheimer’s. We don’t memorize anything anymore, he said. If we want information, we go to the computer, which spills out of a flood of information with the push of a key or the click of a mouse. But simply gathering information is not memorization, Mr. Shenk emphasized. He stressed that to stay strong and healthy, memory has to be exercised just as the body must be exercised to maintain good health. That other “hidden” diseases will appear, or that all the young techies will wind up as demented old codgers, may prove to be false assumptions. But what is not a false assumption is that Alzheimer’s Disease has already reached epidemic proportions and will bankrupt the country unless a cure is found soon. Congress should be appropriating billions for Alzheimer’s care and research and must be prepared to raise taxes to pay the bill. * Barbara Murphy, 78, writes about controversial issues each month.

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